Classic Hong Kong Movie Quality - Blu-ray Forum

drees5761 · 10-23-2012, 02:54 PM

There has been much debate on this forum and elsewhere about the quality of a lot of the Blu ray titles from Hong Kong of classic films.
I just purchased two titles and they could not be more different.
First is the Tokyo Shock USA Blu ray of Five Element Ninjas from 1981.
To start, all i can say is the picture quality is stunning! Crisp, clear with only a hint of DNR, this is one of the best Blu ray Hong Kong movies i have seen.
Audio is as it should be MONO Mandarin with clear English subtitles (in yellow) and an English dub if you like that sort of thing. Extras are just a short interview with Lo Meng and trailers, but i don't expect much bonus material from these type of titles.
The other title i got was Royal Warriors starring Michelle Yeoh and released by K&R in Hong Kong. Great film but this must be one of the worst Blu rays i have ever seen, its not much better than VHS and would pass as a poor DVD release. Grainy (not in a good way), noisy, just awful.
Why such a disparity?
I think it boils down to money. Companies like K&R just cant be bothered to spend on a proper HD re-master, these are meant for Hong Kong, don't forget people there still buy VCD's.
The argument that the elements no longer exist i think is nonsense, Especially bigger companies such as Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest would have looked after the negatives, maybe not so much smaller independent companies such as Seasonal.
I will not buy another K&R Blu ray until i know that its an ok proper HD transfer, such as My Father Is a Hero and Tiger On The Beat which are OK even if they have a little too much DNR applied. I am off now to buy Heroes Two, another Tokyo Shock release which has great reviews also, lets hope some enterprising Western company gets to release these classic films properly in the future, because they sure aren't doing it in Hong Kong at the moment.

10-23-2012, 02:54 PM	#1
drees5761 Expert Member Member since:Nov 2009 Blu-ray collection:274 Blu-ray reviews: 6	Classic Hong Kong Movie Quality There has been much debate on this forum and elsewhere about the quality of a lot of the Blu ray titles from Hong Kong of classic films. I just purchased two titles and they could not be more different. First is the Tokyo Shock USA Blu ray of Five Element Ninjas from 1981. To start, all i can say is the picture quality is stunning! Crisp, clear with only a hint of DNR, this is one of the best Blu ray Hong Kong movies i have seen. Audio is as it should be MONO Mandarin with clear English subtitles (in yellow) and an English dub if you like that sort of thing. Extras are just a short interview with Lo Meng and trailers, but i don't expect much bonus material from these type of titles. The other title i got was Royal Warriors starring Michelle Yeoh and released by K&R in Hong Kong. Great film but this must be one of the worst Blu rays i have ever seen, its not much better than VHS and would pass as a poor DVD release. Grainy (not in a good way), noisy, just awful. Why such a disparity? I think it boils down to money. Companies like K&R just cant be bothered to spend on a proper HD re-master, these are meant for Hong Kong, don't forget people there still buy VCD's. The argument that the elements no longer exist i think is nonsense, Especially bigger companies such as Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest would have looked after the negatives, maybe not so much smaller independent companies such as Seasonal. I will not buy another K&R Blu ray until i know that its an ok proper HD transfer, such as My Father Is a Hero and Tiger On The Beat which are OK even if they have a little too much DNR applied. I am off now to buy Heroes Two, another Tokyo Shock release which has great reviews also, lets hope some enterprising Western company gets to release these classic films properly in the future, because they sure aren't doing it in Hong Kong at the moment.

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